Chapter 9
Lily and Edgar were waiting for us at the Kia. She had just got back from getting his pack from the house and was frantically searching for the keys, which I had liberated from her during the night. I held them up and shook them as I approached. “I'm driving today.”
“No you're not,” Lily answered.
“Oh yes I am. I sat in the back all day yesterday.”
“We don't have time for this. You two need to get this shit settled,” John said.
He was right. The mob was getting closer. In a few minutes they would be on us. “Just get in,” I said.
Lily came over to me and whispered to me. “Did you have a good time last night?”
“You know I did,” I answered.
“If you want that to happen again,” she whispered, “you'll give me those keys.”
I handed her the keys and went around to the passenger side and got in the front seat.
Lily threw Edgar's bag in the back and got in the Kia. John got in the backseat and we all sat there staring at Edgar, who still stood outside the SUV.
“I have to get to my wife and kids,” he said.
John leaned across the seat and opened the door. “We're going to take you to them. Just get in.”
“Do you know where they are?” he said as he got in.
“Yeah, they're at the farm,” John said.
“That's great. Do you know how to get there?”
“No,” Lily said, “but I bet you do.”
“It's about fifteen miles due east of here,” Edgar said, pointing in the direction of the rising sun. “This road turns into a two lane highway about five miles from here. The farm is right next to the highway.”
Edgar was pointing down the road that the horde had traveled down last night. Unless something caused them to change direction they would be to the farm sometime today. Lily stomped on the gas and turned down the road.
“Edgar, is there another way to the farm?” Lily asked.
“Yes, but this takes us right to it. We can be there in less than half an hour. Especially if you keep driving like this.”
I didn't see any reason to panic Edgar so I lied. “The road is washed out ahead. We'll have to go around.”
“How far down is it washed out from here? I can probably get us around it. There are several side streets we can take.”
“I need one that takes us a few miles from this road and gets us closest to your farm,” Lily said.
“Just tell him,” John said.
“Tell me what?”
“There's a horde of zombies in front of us. They moved through here last night. If we hurry we can beat them to the farm,” I said.
“Can't we just drive through them?”
“Edgar, I want you to listen very closely to me,” Lily said. “Did you notice that the big Elm tree that was in front of your house was gone?”
“Come to think of it I don't remember seeing it. With everything that was going on though I could have missed it and there were a lot of dead zombies all over the place. Why'd you smash them like that?”
“Take my word for it. The tree was gone. There were so many of them moving down your street it was torn from the ground. Then it just got pushed along with them as the horde made their way down the street. The zombies are the ones that smashed all those bodies. The ones that can't keep up get trampled by the ones following behind.”
“Turn right here,” Edgar said.
Lily was right on top of the street that Edgar referred to so she slammed on the brakes and made a hard right. “How close can you get us to the farm?” she asked.
“About three miles. Like I said though there are a bunch of side roads we could take. Only they don't get as close to the farm.”
“Does it add much time to the trip?”
“About twenty minutes is all. Is that too much?”
“Let's hope not.” I said.
It was pretty quiet in the car for most of the trip. We talked to Edgar for a while in an attempt to calm him down some. We could tell he was worried so we did our best to keep him occupied while Lily sped down the deserted side streets. He told us he had gone to check on his mother, she lived in a nursing home a few miles from their house, but was unable to get there. He had been forced to hold up in a deserted house the past two days. Finally the zombies that surrounded the house lost interest or were attracted to something else. When he woke up this morning and discovered they were gone he tried to make it back home. On the way he was forced to swerve to avoid two of the undead walking down the middle of the road and had crashed his car. He had been on the run ever since. At first only the two zombies he had avoided running down pursued him. The further he went the more zombies fell in behind him. By the time he reached his street he had attracted the runners and had been forced to pick up his pace. At this point of his story he finally thanked John and me for intervening.
After several turns and a few near misses at running over the few stray zombies we encountered on the trip, Edgar told us we were almost there. We came out of a heavily wooded area and were now passing by open fields. In the distance I could see the horde we'd been trying to beat to his farmhouse. They were already past the intersection we were headed for. Lily stopped and we sat in the middle of the road. The horde stretched down the road for as far as the eye could see in both directions.
“Is there another road we can take?” John asked.
“This is it. Can't we just drive through them?”
“There's no way we'd make it through,” I said. “What about something that goes past the house?”
“There's only one other way.”
“Tell me how to get there,” Lily said.
“You have to go through that intersection.”
“You're telling me I have to drive through that horde,” Lily said.
“That's the only way. There's a road just on the other side of that ridge that runs parallel to the highway. It'll take us a mile past the house then we can circle back.”
Lily turned to me. “What do you think?”
I didn't know what to say. The horde could already be to the house. It may have gone right past. Or his wife and kids could be dead already. “John, what do you think?”
“We need a tank, is what I think.”
“Please, I'm begging you,” Edgar said.
I reached over and took Lily's hand. “Do it.”
“Holy shit,” John said.
Lily started the Kia moving forward. The horde was packed in pretty tight in front of us. The main body was about forty feet wide. The highway ran through farmland and at one time barbed wire fencing had bordered each side of the road. I could only assume this because I could see that when the horde came to this intersection they had spread out onto the road that we were on. The fencing closest to the main body was gone but as we got closer to the intersection zombies were hung up in the fencing that bordered the stretch of road that we were on.
As Lily got closer to the intersection she slowed our speed and moved into the left hand lane. By now the zombies closest to us were moving in our direction. We weren't even to the main body of the horde and had already had at least twenty jarring impacts with the undead. The zombies began to close in around us. They were beating on the sides of the SUV and pounding on the windows. We sat high enough off the ground that only a few bodies were thrown up onto the hood of the Kia. Most slid off and the ones that didn't were eventually knocked off by the next to be catapulted onto the hood. Then we hit the main body of the horde. I could tell because our forward progress nearly stopped. We were no longer running into zombies. Instead it felt like we were trying to push through a solid wall. Lily gave the Kia more gas. I could hear the tires squealing. Still our speed through the horde continued to drop. Lily cut the wheel hard to the left, trying to compensate for the sideways push we were experiencing to the right. This helped a little but still we slid to the right. She cut the wheel hard right and we lurched forward; then our progress slowed
again. The front of the Kia started to point in the direction the horde was going so Lily cut the wheel hard to the left again. The nose of the car started to come back around and we started our sideways slide down the highway again. Not only were our tires squealing as we tried to move forward they also made a dragging sound as we were pushed sideways. One of the windows in the cargo area exploded in. John started firing through the broken window. As our forward momentum slowed again Lily cut the wheel hard right. Once again we lurched forward and started moving with the horde. Lily responded by turning to the left again. By repeating this left, right, back and forth motion we were actually making headway. Lily broke through the main body of the horde, ran over about twenty or thirty more zombies, and we were free.
We sped down the road until we came to the side street running parallel to the highway. Lily made a hard right and slammed on the brakes. There was a three car pile-up blocking the road. Drainage ditches ran down both sides making it impossible to go around. To make matters worse we had split the herd. Soon thousands of zombies would be on us. We all got out of the Kia and stood in the middle of the street, hands on hips, surveying the situation.
Two of the cars had hit head on. Their damage was so severe there was no way we would be able to just push either of them out of the way. The third looked to have been following too close behind one of the two cars involved in the head on collision and had hit the back of the car on the drivers side when it swerved to avoid the pile-up. The driver was still trapped in the mini van, securely buckled in. She stared at us through opaque eyes trying to grab at us from her broken drivers side window.
“I think we can push that one out of the way. Do you think she'll mind?” John asked.
I pulled my pistol out and shot her in the head. “Not now.”
There was no way to get at the minivan from the drivers side so John opened the passenger door and started to climb in. Black blood and the goo that at one time had been her brain covered the door, window, and seat. This was obviously from me having just blew her brains out. John pulled back and gave me a dirty look. I just shrugged my shoulders. Instead of climbing into the van he carefully reached in and put it in neutral.
“You're going to have to get in there and steer,” I said.
Somebody did need to steer but from the look on John's face I could tell that he thought it should be me. There wasn't time to discuss the matter so he took a deep breath and crawled in. Once he was in John didn't waste any time undoing the seat belt and dragging the body out of the van. We all got in front of the van and pushed while John steered. We had to back and forth a few times to get the van free from the other vehicles but were able to do this fairly quickly which was good because the horde was almost on us. Lily had even had to stop pushing a few times to shoot down the runners that were getting too close to us. We pushed the van out of the right lane, leaving just enough room to squeeze by, and got back in the Kia.
With all the shooting we had just done an even larger number of the horde turned their attention towards us. When we made our way past the wreckage the drivers side of the Kia drug across the bumper of one the wrecked cars. For a minute I didn't think we were going to make it then the rear quarter panel tore free and we lurched forward. We could see the horde moving down the highway only a few hundred yards away just on the other side of a field separating the two stretches of road. As we drove down the road Lily continuously honked the horn, trying to draw the attention of the mob. This worked somewhat to draw some of them toward us but the main body continued down the highway.
Edgar told us we were only about a mile from his house and we still could not see the front end. Less than a minute later the roof of a house appeared on the horizon. It was the farmhouse. At the same time we reached the front of the horde. They were less than a quarter mile from the house. Lily stopped the Kia and we all started firing from the car into the horde. We had no delusions of being able to kill them all. We just wanted to turn them away from the house. Like the horn, this worked to a degree. Some of the horde began to cross the field and head in our direction. The main group continued on. It was if they had somewhere to be and nothing was going to deter them.
We gave up on trying to turn the horde and took off down the road again. When we came to the house again Lily stopped the car. It sat a few hundred feet off the road and we could see two cars parked out front but could see no activity from the house. Surely with all the gunfire they had to have heard us. I fired my pistol into the air in an effort to draw Jenny's attention. A man carrying a rifle came out onto the porch and started shooting at us. Lily stomped on the gas and sped off. We'd just have to try and beat the horde to the house.
“Who the fuck was that?” I demanded of Edgar.
“I have no idea. The one car was Jenny's but I didn't recognize the other. Please hurry.”
“I'm going as fat as I can,” Lily said.
We came to an intersection and Lily hardly slowed to make the turn. She turned right again and sped toward the farmhouse. In the distance we could see a car headed in our direction. It got closer and I could see that it was one of the cars that had been in front of the house. Lily slowed to meet the car and the puke green Oldsmobile flew past us. I could see two men in the front seat and no one else.
“Keep going Lily,” I said.
A few seconds later we pulled into the driveway. All of us jumped out of the SUV and ran into the house. The horde was only a few hundred yards away and getting closer by the second. Edgar ran up the stairs. I followed him while Lily and John checked the first floor. When I reached the second floor I saw Edgar run through a doorway. I followed him into the room. It was the kids room. They were both lying in their beds. Their pillows were covered in dried blood. They had obviously been dead for a while. Both had been beaten to death, their little skulls crushed. Edgar sobbed and turned and left the room. He went to a different room and went in. I followed him into what must have been the master bedroom. Lying in a fresh pool of blood was Edgar's wife Jenny. Her throat slashed. She was nude, her body covered in fresh bruises. From the bruising and scratches all up and down her inner thighs it appeared that she had been repeatedly and savagely raped.
“What kind of God lets this kind of thing happen? She was a good woman. My innocent babies never had a chance. Why would he make them pay for my sins?”
I didn't know what to say. I was sickened by what I saw. He was right. What kind of God lets this happen? Not just this but everything that has happened in the past few weeks. It's like he turned his back on mankind. Decided it was time to clean house.
“I don't know if I believe in God anymore Edgar. You can't blame yourself for this. Even if there is a God, nothing you could have done could justify this kind of retribution.”
“You have no idea what kind of man I am.”
John came into the room. “Oh my God,” he said, seeing Jenny lying there. “Tim we gotta go. They'll be here any second. Edgar, I'm so sorry.”
“What do you want to do Edgar?”
He didn't answer me, only turned and walked from the room. We followed him down the steps and out of the house. He walked off the porch and toward the horde.
“Edgar,” I called after him. “Come with us.”
I went to go after him but John grabbed my arm. “Let him go.”
I pulled my arm free. “We can't let him do this.”
“If that was your wife and kids in there would you want to keep living?” he asked me.
I looked back at John. He was right. I just couldn't bring myself to let Edgar die like that. Lily came out of the house, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Let's go get those son-of-a-bitches,” she said. “Where's he going?”
“I think Edgar wants to be alone,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”
The noise from the horde was getting louder. They had seen Edgar and the moaning had begun. It got so bad I couldn't hear what Lily was trying to say to me. She finally gave up and ran back into the hou
se. She was only gone a few seconds when she ran back out. Smoke billowed from one of the windows. She had set a fire. We went to the Kia and I looked back at Edgar. The horde was almost on him. They were fighting and jostling for position trying to be the first to get to the fresh meat. Just as they were about to pounce he turned and ran over to me.
“I need my bag,” he shouted.
Edgar and I went to the back of the Kia and I got his bag for him. He rifled through it, throwing most of it's contents to the ground. He finally found what he was looking for, a pistol.
“Don't try to follow me,” he said. “I have to do this alone. I owe them that much.”
He went to his wife's Subaru got in and drove away.
The fire was going pretty good by now. The sound of the crackling flames helped draw some of the zombies attention away from us. We gave Edgar a thirty second head start then left. I had Lily drive slow for a while. I didn't want Edgar to think we were trying to following him.
Chapter 10
I got the first aid kit out and did the best I could to wrap Rick's head. Al told me to go ahead and pour alcohol on what was left of his ear. I think he hoped it would burn so bad Rick would come around. It didn't work. Cindy had a better stocked kit somewhere in the truck that Al told me had some smelling salts. After tearing through everything in the back of the truck we finally found the bag that contained the rest of her medical supplies. Al frantically searched through the bag and finally found what he was looking for.
“You guys need to be careful with him,” Gina yelled back at us. “He's probably had at least one concussion in the past few hours.”
“He's our only chance of finding Cindy,” Al said.
There was no way Gina could have heard what he said. He was talking to himself, not either one of us. I could see the desperation in his eyes. If we didn't find Cindy soon we most likely never would.
Al opened the vial and waved it under Rick's nose. The reaction was immediate. His eyes came open and he looked around. His pupils were dilated and I could tell he was in a lot of pain.
Dead Life (Book 4) Page 10
